A Day In The Life
by Randomuso
Summary: Charles' Academy is home to all sorts of young mutants...is your character one of them? !SYOC SYOC SYOC SYOC! -Submit your own character-
1. Chapter 1

_Thanks for the great response everyone! I was honestly shocked and ecstatic at the sheer amount of responses I received for this story, so much earlier than I thought I was going to say this:_

_I am not accepting any more submissions, I am into the planning stage!_

_Before you ask, no I don't know how long planning will take me, maybe one week, maybe two if I really get swamped this week, but I'll try to get stuff out as early as possible. _

_To keep you entertained while I'm busy doing schoolwork, I'm going to do a series of short scenes and upload them, such as this one, to get you into the setting, because it's in a slightly weird AU in terms of me screwing with timelines. Some of the teachers will be there, some won't, some shouldn't be there but are anyway *shrug* It's all stars X-Men:_

Charles sat before the fireplace in the library, a glass of red wine dangling from his right hand. It had been nearly twelve years since the beach, and he wasn't a young man anymore, despite Hank's assurance that he had retained his good looks. A small smile crossed his face as he thought of his students…his teachers now, he supposed, shaking his head slightly. When had that happened?

When had he gotten to be old enough to have students teaching at his school? He was proud of his Academy, the school he had built from the ground up. He had intended it as a safe haven for mutants and it had entirely fulfilled his expectations as that. His old house had never been put to a better use. He was proud of himself, his achievements and of his students, all of them, old and new.

So why did he still feel a darkness lingering in his mind?

A glance over at the coffee table to his left quickly confirmed the answer he already knew as his gaze passed over their chess set, still frozen in the middle of their last game. Eric. A familiar pain shot through his head when he thought of his old friend and he reached out as he always did with his mind, just in case this time he could find him. Twelve years since the beach…twelve years since he had last seen Eric…twelve years since he had been put in this infernal wheelchair. He may still look young, but Charles was old, so old. And he missed his friend. He had his school, he had respect and his morals were being amply served. The only thing missing was the man he had planned it with. As always, he was hit with a sense of loss. Eric could have been a great asset to the cause, he could have been an inspiration. Instead he was…what? If only Charles knew. All that was certain was that wherever Charles was, Eric was far away and on the opposite side.

Charles knew this. Of course he did, but that couldn't stop him missing their conversations, their arguments. He had been a friend. And now was he an enemy? Charles truly hoped that he wasn't.

He slowly steered over to the coffee table in the wonderful wheelchair Hank had built for him. He still saw Hank every so often, but the blue-furred Beast was involved in politics now and rarely had the time to visit old friends. Charles steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them, staring at the chess set. Eric had been winning.

He needed to focus on the present. Regrets accosted him with could haves and should haves but as much as he wanted to and even with his abilities, he could not change anything that had already passed.

Now he had Logan, he had Hank and Storm, Grayson and Rebecca, and students that needed him, mutants that needed rescuing. Charles grinned. How dramatic of him. Just to assure himself of his marvellous present, Charled cast his mind out through the building and listened…dreams, feet on floorboards, passionate kisses and woozy drunken thoughts…nerves, anticipation, wonder, safety, determination…security.

What an amazing group he had…taking a sip of his wine, he picked up the black king and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Ah, what a shame you left us Eric, he thought. You could have been a part of this.

Shaking his head sadly, Charles put the king in his pocket and wheeled out towards Cerebro. His visit was long overdue.


	2. Chapter 2

Logan leant casually on the wall of the tunnel, a cigar clenched between his teeth. "You're gonna have to try a hell of a lot harder than that if you wanna win this, kid." he growled around it as he watched the kids falling around the sewer. Maria with her power to walk in dreams and Bradley with his plastic-bending hadn't gotten very far in the exercise. He'd disposed of them in the first few minutes.

Kari had made it a bit further before she her control had snapped and she'd sent electricity all through the area and knocked herself out, taking Catrin, a piece of the wall and a very pissed off Tommy with her.

Logan had barely had to do any work so far, dodging a few ferals and sending Jarek flying back down the tunnel had barely brought out a sweat.

Jarek was a pretty tough kid though and he didn't back down. His past had hardly given him a reason to trust and given him more than enough reason to never back down from a fight. Cage fighting did that to people. Logan should know. Jarek had been there for a year now and Logan had had to thump him a few days in a row to get the kid to realise he wasn't about to break and a few days more to convince him to attack him. The kid was getting good. His hand to hand hardly needed any help and after a year he could hold his own against Logan and heal himself afterwards. Those kinetic-energy fuelled punches certainly gave Logan something to try and dodge. For the moment, however, Jarek was stuck behind a collapsed portion of the sewer wall with the recently rebutted knife-thrower Leah and together they were trying to figure out a way around it.

Logan glanced over at the opposite wall to him where Cali was just pulling herself up from the floor. As she noticed him watching her, her force field quickly grew and surrounded her with a blue-ish white glow. Logan grunted a laugh around his cigar. She'd forgotten to throw that force field up the last few times they'd sparred. Obviously she'd remembered this time. That tiny attention span of hers was going to get her into trouble some day. Well, she was safe for as long as she wanted to stay in her little bubble. She'd have to attack him some time, but for the moment, Logan couldn't tough her, so he left her alone and focussed his attention on the girl he'd spoken to at the start.

Rachel's ruby claws were dug into the tunnel wall and she was panting, but glaring at him and Cali alternately. Rachel was a feral that had been around for a few years now, and her and Cali had never gotten along despite arriving at the mansion almost the same time. Logan had somehow fallen into the role of mediator between them, though how was entirely beyond him. His mentor role to both of the ferals was something he felt in his bones, but he still wasn't too happy about it. Especially when they were at each other's throats all the time.

"Well?" he asked Rachel impatiently. She growled and launched herself at him. Logan puffed on his cigar a few more times before she neared. He dodged backwards and swung around, trapping Rachel against the wall and effectively 'killing her'. A sniff revealed Cali flying at him from the other side and he thrust his arm out behind him, claws out. Cali stopped her own momentum just before she was really impaled and Logan shook his head. "You know you two would be unstoppable if you worked together." They both made to respond in what he was sure would be foul-mouthed ways before they both vanished from the simulation and Logan was left alone with Jarek and Leah, who had by this stage finally made it around the portion of wall. Logan assumed from the chunks of rocks scattered around the place that they had effectively blown it up.

Logan pulled his cigar from his lips, blew out a plume of smoke and put it back in his mouth, arching an eyebrow. Jarek shot a look at Leah and flew at Logan. Logan prepared himself, knowing that Jarek was actually a more than capable fighter and his punches would affect Logan more than any normal punch would affect any normal person. Fending off his blows and giving a few in return, Logan admired their tactics as Leah began throwing her lethal knives at him. A girl with perfect aim was difficult to dodge under much less stressful circumstances. Finally, some team work. Logan grinned. Leah had even got Jarek to work with her. Trust issues boy working with hunter girl. That almost got them a victory. Almost. Not quite.

Logan sliced through Leah's last knife and caught Jarek's blow, swinging it into the ground. The impact near shattered Jarek's hand and sent rippling waves through the floor which shook Leah off her feet and threw her violently across the room. Logan anchored himself and his feet rattled and cracked as Jarek's kinetic energy shook the room. His healing immediately took place and Logan was able to remain in place and throw a clawed fist to Jarek's throat, nicking the skin slightly.

It had been a pretty decent fight. Not that he would tell them that. His cigar had even fallen to the ground.

Jarek stood up and began to dust himself off even as he and Leah disappeared from the hologram.

Logan picked up his cigar and stuck it back between his teeth, barking out a rough, "Next!" and leaning casually against the wall of the tunnel.

_Ok, I think I have my planning mostly done now. Onto the writing! Well, I've got school and assignments this week, but I'm gonna start out. Have another short to tide you over, this is another setting thing, there were a few requests for Logan whooping ass in the danger room, and it seemed like a good way to introduce a few OCs, so here you go! _

_Real plot should be coming out soonish. I think there's one more short to go before real plot, and it's a fun one, but this'll have to do for now. Enjoy!_

_Randomuso_


	3. Chapter 3

"Look, the Professor is out picking up the new kid." Seriena assured the pair in front of her. "We won't get caught, at least, not until he gets back."

"And then he'll be too occupied with the new kid to do much about it." Seth added with a grin.

Leah grinned and ran a hand through her short, blonde hair. "Well we're not the ones you need to convince Seri. You know we're always up for a good prank."

Seri beamed, tying back her dark, blue tipped locks and settling down for a planning session. "Ok, well who else do we want in?"

Seth settled on his back on the couch and shrugged. "It's a pretty big one, so you're gonna need a few people."

"Not too many though," Leah added. "Or then you can guarantee someone'll let it slip and the whole plan will collapse."

Nodding sagely, Seriena pondered her options for a moment. "Well, we've got Seth's power, that'll come in handy."

Seth and Leah shared a devilish grin. They were a good team when it came to pranks and mischief. When one person could throw something and hit the target every single time and the other could teleport inanimate objects to somewhere a mile away, you didn't want to be the one they were targeting.

"Cali!" Seriena spurted out. "She'd be perfect, and she's always up for a good prank," she added. Cali had been Seriena's first friend in the mansion. She'd been there a few months now however, and now she was fairly well in in the social circles.

Leah nodded with a grin. "Cali's cool, she'll totally work. Though if we use Cali we can't use Rachelle, that'd just be dangerous."

"Tommy'll want in," Seth added around a mouthful of chips. "He can make a distraction or something. And Maria. She might help. I dunno."

"And don't forget Catrin! She'll be perfect for this. I doubt Sophie would be able to do much though."

Seriena nodded again, storing all of this information away in her conniving brain. Seth had a point. Maria could be useful for distractions, and Tommy would be just as useful for distractions, though in a much less subtle way. Maria could control their dreams and sleep. Tommy could blow something up and bring everyone running. Both were good…using them together could be even more fun…And Catrin, well, she was a little reserved, but she had power over light and dark…that was going to be so useful.

Seri had to grin. Her brain was teeming with strategies, but it wasn't for going out and fighting mutant-haters anymore, it was for pranks. Nothing could be any more different. It felt good. Thoughts of mutant-haters and thoughts of her father…her father's killer…they still sent her blood boiling, but she didn't need to worry about them while she was here. She would train, she would fight, and then she would win. And in the meantime…harmless, tame pranks were a good way to keep her strategic brain alive. She leapt to her feet. "Ok, let's go find the others and start planning."

A short while later found the group huddled around a table. One dream-walker, silent and reserved, one feral who could make her own force-fields, one girl with impeccable aim, one manipulator of light, one boy with explosive telekinesis, one teleporter and one time-controller. They were a fearsome group.

Cali shook her head with a grin. "I can't believe we're doing this," she whispered giddily. The whole team was excited and exhilarated, impatient.

"You all know the plan," Seri told them seriously, her eyes meeting each person of the group's. "Tommy first, then I'll slow time down around where we are. Leah and Seth will spread out and send them to you Maria, Catrin and Cali, you spread them around, hide them and implant dream clues. Make sure no-one sees you."

They had gone over the plan so many times, everybody knew their part perfectly well. They'd even convinced Kari Munroe to go and help keep everyone down on the lawn for as long as possible.

"Alright, let's spread out," Seri ordered, but Cali caught her arm. "Hang on, we're on a mission." She glanced around the group as though waiting for someone to get her implication. When no-one did, she grinned and declared, "We need code names!"

The massive grins that went around the group quickly descended into hurried and excited conversation, that came to no useful conclusion other than the decision to think about them later. A few people already had good ideas of what they wanted their codenames to be, but Seri was firmly in charge and they were out of time. She cut off the conversation with a loud, "Oi!" which everyone gradually paid attention to and quietened down. Seri shot the group a grin. "It's time."

Such a declaration coming from a girl that manipulated time earned a few laughs. Seri clapped Tommy on the shoulder.

The telekinetic got to his feet and cracked his knuckles with a grin. He rolled his shoulders as he walked outside. "You may hear a slight bang." he told them, his tone coated with sarcasm. He threw massive things around with his mind. Of course there was going to be a bang.

Tommy's exit was the prompt for Leah and Seth to tear off across the field and into position. For the rest of the group, it was a prompt to duck and cover.

BANG!

The 'slight bang' was enough to shake the ground around them and shower a rain of leaves on their heads. "Holy crap!" Cali hissed. "What did he throw? Canada?"

"His name should be Barrage." Catrin informed them quietly. The comment was a bit out of place in the conversation, but that was expected from Catrin. The others shared glances and nodded appreciatively. "It fits, actually." Seri replied quickly. "Now go, go, go!"

Seri obeyed her own command and bolted from the cover of the tree to where Tommy was standing smugly beside some wreckage and attempting to look sheepish.

Cali, Catrin and Maria exchanged glances and grins and waited until they saw the flood of teachers running towards the noise. Storm was there, Kari at her side as planned, Logan bolting down with Grayson and Gambit. It was a fairly hilarious sight, Logan only in a state of half-dressed beauty and Gambit still covered with shaving cream.

The trio of girls ran for their next mark as soon as all the teachers were within Seri's range of time manipulation and moving in slow motion.

Their job now was to make it to the bottom of the stairs in time for their load…

Leah was in Logan's bedroom. It was a new location for her, to be sure, but she barely paused to look around as she made her way over to the desk in the corner. She needed to get the package to Seth. And _then_ she'd check out Logan's room properly. Rifling through the drawers of the desk and the bedside table, Leah near exploded with laughter every time she realised what she was doing. Shaking her head, her shoulders shuddering with mirth, Leah put the collection on her table and stood back for a moment to observe. "Wow," she murmured. "How many cigars do you _need_, Logan?"

Alright, enough break time, time to work. Padding back over to the door with the considerable stash she had found, Leah signalled to Seth at the other end of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. He signalled back eagerly, holding up one finger. Leah knew it to mean, let's just try one first in Seth sign language, so she braced herself against the doorframe and picked up a cigar, feeling her mutation surge through her. She grinned. "Sorry, Logan. This is just priceless."

She harnessed her ability to throw with impossible aim and sent it hurtling towards Seth.

Seth saw the cigar flying towards him and grinned like he never had before. He knew Leah would be grinning more. Well, maybe not more, but at least as much as he was. They'd done too many pranks like this together for their part of the plan to be anything but seamless.

The cigar hit its mark as perfectly as always, and he vanished it just before it hit him directly in the middle of the chest, sending it directly down the stairs to where the girls were waiting.

He paused, counting to ten in his head, enough time for the girls to notice and find where the cigar had arrived, where he would be teleporting the first load of cigars to.

Waving to his best friend of years, Seth wiggled his fingers in their gesture of 'Let's do this!' and waited. A second later, a barrage of cigars was flying down the hallway towards him.

Seth grinned. Leah was the best partner in crime a teleporter could ask for.

A cigar dropped directly into Maria's lap as she sat on the bottom stair. It was unmistakably Logan's. A small smile crossed her face and she silently held it up, signalling to Catrin and Cali that it was beginning. The other two girls rushed over to her through the few people that were milling around in the hall. Maria glanced to the side where Sophie Bell was peering at them curiously. At Maria's look, Sophie's eyes widened slightly and she vanished into the wisp of air her mutation allowed her to become and zipped off up the stairs. With her gone, Maria looked back at the cigar in her hand and moved out of the way to let Cali sit in the spot she'd previously occupied. The next load of cigars quickly dropped into Cali's lap. Pocketing the first cigar for later usage, Maria nodded at the pile in Cali's lap. "He said he was going to send them in loads. This has to be the first one."

Cali nodded back. "Three minutes until the next load, come on."

The group bolted over to the nearest classrooms and quickly got to work, Cali scattering the cigars anywhere there was a convenient spot, Catrin darkening the area around the hiding spot until your eyes near slid straight off it and Maria pausing to take the picture and work her dream magic to create dream clues she could set to trigger at each area and images and words she could implant in Logan's dreams that night. She had to be careful, too much and he would realise who was doing it and then she was in for it.

Their operation ran smoothly and three minutes found them in the next drop spot to receive the next load of cigars. All in all, there weren't that many, more than a normal person, sure, but not an absurd amount. A Loganish amount. It took them around 21 minutes and a fair few different drop points to hide them all, including the secret stash that Leah must have found later than the first lot.

The end of the cigar run was signified by Seth teleporting a hacky sack to the drop point, a sign for the group to disperse and act naturally, their objective was complete, their only job now was not to be caught.

The hacky sack, however, was closely followed by a rubber duck, which Cali caught with wide eyes. A rubber duck was not a good sign. That meant that the teachers were coming back inside. Logan was returning.

Almost in sync with the dull thud of the rubber duck landing in Cali's hands, the doors slammed open and let in a rumble of voices and footsteps.

Catrin nearly squeaked at the sight of the duck, quickly disappearing down the hallway before the doors even fully opened. Cali looked around for Maria, but she had cleared out when she saw the hacky sack. Cali cursed. Damn that girl's quick reflexes. Now she was standing alone in the hall, holding a rubber duck.

Most people passed her by, but Logan cocked an eyebrow in a way only he could. He didn't even need to ask.

Cali refused to blush. "What? Never seen a rubber duck before?" she demanded, turning on her heel and leaving.

Well, that wasn't her best exit ever, but that prank…that was one that would go down in the history books. She quickly scooted down the hall, Seriena catching up to her as she walked. The pair shared a nod and a grin, desperately attempting to stifle their giggles.

Logan shook his head, confused and stressed by the morning's activities. Between Tommy, Seri, Kari and now Cali, he'd had one of the weirdest, most stressful and confusing mornings in a long while. He did not want to be awake. Logan began the march up to his room, shaking his head at the morning's odd occurrences. "Is it too early for a drink?" he growled at Gambit, who threw him a look. Logan nodded. "A cigar it is then."

In the hallways he had left behind, laughter erupted.

_Hi again guys! Well, I promised you another short, and here it is. Progress is a tad slower than I was hoping, but I'm still bogged down by schoolwork and rehearsals etc, you know how busy life can get. Anyway, please enjoy this one, it was very fun to write. :p_

_The next upload should be the first real chapter, with the appearance of a lot of OCs that aren't already in there…get excited!_

_Randomuso _


	4. Chapter 4

Peter was not a happy dragon. And by that, he meant he was furious. He'd been living in the one place alone for what seemed like years but in truth was only a few short weeks, surrounded by the ashen remains of the only home he had ever known. Of the only person he had ever known.

His uncle was dead, and he was never going to come back with more books or a new maths lesson or a comforting hand at night, no, he was dead. There was nothing more to say about it, nothing to do. He was gone. In his books, there was always a way for people to come back from the dead, but here in reality, none of that worked. Dead was dead and there was nothing Peter could do to change it. His only comfort in the hard, cold fact was that his uncle would be in heaven now. No doubt about it, that man was a saint and he would be welcomed at heaven's gates with open arms to live a better life above, watching over Peter.

Those people, the ones from outside…were they what people were really like? Were all people so evil, so cruel, so…Peter stopped fuming a moment as a book began to dent in his iron grip. He looked down at his hand, scaled, hard and cold. Was he a monster? That was what they called him, yelled at him, burning down the house and killing his only friend and companion. Wouldn't that make them the monsters?

Peter deftly hissed at a scuttling under some wreckage, acid streaming out of his mouth to disable the rat that was trying to pass unnoticed through the debris. Rats were dirty, they didn't belong in his house. Well now they belonged in his belly. He was hungry, and he couldn't go out to get real food. He didn't know where to get real food. He'd never even been out of the house! The rodent shrieked in pain and terror as the burning liquid began to eat away at its skin and tissues, and it thrashed about in a futile attempt to escape the searing agony. After a few moments of violent spasms, the rat's screams and the sound of its wriggling vanished from the thick, smoky air. Peter sighed and scooped up the still-smouldering corpse in his clawed hand. He traced his eyes over the creature apathetically, brought it to his lips, and proceeded to place the pitiful creature into his mouth. His tongue recoiled at the oddly-furry texture of the rat, he but forced his jaws to close together. He winced as he felt the fragile bones snap as the poor rodent was thoroughly compressed. After a few more painful crunches, Peter attempted to swallow the rat. Its warm blood trickled down his throat, triggering his gag reflex and his stomach heaved, unwilling to accept the barely-dead offering. After painfully recovering, Peter closed his watering eyes, breathed deeply through his nose, and muscled his way past the gag reflex, sending the "meal" tumbling down into his stomach.

He was too angry to go out…he might hurt someone. He'd hurt too many people already. But they weren't people! They were the monsters, not him! Peter reached down and idly scratched the wound on his right leg. It itched and bled but he had no idea how to fix it. All he could do was sit here, eat rats and read. Books. He still had books. A few of his favourites had burnt, but a few of them had survived and those he read over and over again, escaping to other lands in his imagination where he didn't have to face reality, didn't have to face the rage and the impulse to go and destroy the monsters, or have to face the emotion beneath the rage…because there was another emotion, a stronger one, feeding and fuelling the anger and the fury, and that was terror. Pure, untainted terror as he had never felt before in his life.

At night when he closed his eyes he saw his body engulfed by flames but not getting burnt, watching his uncle catch afire and burn, being unable to go and help him because he was already too far gone and how was he to know that that was what happened to normal people when they caught on fire when his scales just brushed the flames off like a tickle. Every day he opened his eyes and the fear grew again as he waited for them to come for him. They wouldn't leave him alone, not for much longer, surely, eventually they would regroup and they would come for him and this time they would be prepared and this time he would die or he would kill and both of those options terrified him so deeply he could barely move for fear paralysis when those dark thoughts struck.

There was a noise from outside. A crackle, a creak and the crunch of feet on ash and branches.

Immediately, Peter tensed, snarling and bringing his wings close to his body. For all his bluster though, his eyes were wide and he was desperately fighting the urge to start crying.

The two figures that halted before him were small, so small compared to him. One was standing, her hair in reddish-brown curls around her shoulders and her eyes a light blue sort of like the sky. The other was even smaller for the fact that he seemed to be sitting on a chair, a rolling chair. Was that the normal way for People to travel? They wheeled? His uncle didn't have wheels. The man scared Peter more than the woman. For some reason, his eyes seemed to see straight into him and that made him nervous. Did normal People do that? Could they see you inside? They made a move to come closer and Peter threw his arms in front of him in what he hoped was a threatening way, his wings flapping a beat, sending ash swirling into the air.

The pair immediately drew to a halt. And it was then that the man started speaking. "Peter, please do not be alarmed." His voice was calm, reassuring, but Peter didn't trust him. He couldn't. "This is Rebecca Hawthorne, and I am Professor Charles Xavier. We're here to help you, Peter. I know this much of the outside must be terrifying to you at the moment, but I promise you, we are your friends."

Were they? They were just other outsiders, weren't they? Just People like the others.

"H-How do you know my name?!" Peter snarled, his voice hitching in his throat on the barely contained screams tapped within.

The woman bit her lip in contained shock at the sudden outburst, but the man in the chair simply smiled again, a new sympathy filling his features. No, not sympathy…empathy. Empathy suited this man on wheels. The emotion seemed at home on his face.

Peter began to tremble as the pair's eyes seemed to pick him to pieces, and shame began its slow surge through his body. He had hoped no one would ever see him…like this…ever again. He knew that he was never going to look the same as everyone else, he was never going to have the smooth skin or the lips or the nose, but shame still threatened to fill him for looking like he did. He scared people when they looked at him. They had seen him for the first time and run away, desperate to escape the "monster" within Reverend Whitney's house…Perhaps the only thing for him to do was to hide, to stay away from the People so that they wouldn't hurt him…and he wouldn't hurt them. Subconsciously, he felt his wings slowly begin to spread out to crudely encircle him in a vain attempt to hide his shameful, bestial appearance, panic still battling with shame in his chest.

After a moment or so, Peter glanced up, his stinging-with-tears eyes expecting to see the People absent from the scene of even running (or he guessed wheeling) away in terror. But, to his surprise they were still there, watching him with the same expressions of warmth. Peter's visage of shame slowly melded with one of surprise and his wings began to gradually fold unbidden back into their original states. The man's gentle smile grew into a proud one that made his eyes wrinkle at the edges. Proud? Why would the man feel proud of him? Confusion beat at Peter's skull.

"Peter, we are not here to hurt you. We know what you have been through: the years of solitude, the day you went outside, the fire," At this, the man paused, his gaze narrowing to see only Peter, empathy clear on his kind features. "The loss of your Uncle Samuel."

Peter's scaled face tightened in surprise. "How could…" he began in barely a hoarse whisper. Swallowing, he began again in a more threatening tone. "How could you know all that? Uncle said that no one knew about me!"

The man's smiled dimmed somewhat into an enigmatic look of contentment. "How I know what I know does not especially matter. What matters right now is that I am not going to let you sit here and waste away when you have such a bright future ahead of you, if you allow us to help you."

Peter felt the man's eyes go to his leg.

"We'll have to get that fixed for you as well, it needs attention," he added in a tone that automatically made Peter feel sheepish. Peter locked eyes with the wheeled man. His face spoke of genuine concern and earnestness, but somewhere in the depths of Peter's mind, he knew it just had to be another ruse. It had to be. People were evil creatures. His almost-forgotten anger flooded back and his face contorted into what he hoped was a fearsome scowl as he bared his fangs just slightly out of the sides of his maw.

"Why would you want to help me? You're just like _them,_" he growled. "All you want to do is hurt me and kill me and take away the little bit I have left." They were just like them, weren't they? They were just other outsiders. All outsiders did was hurt and kill. They were just People like the _rest_.

"Leave me alone," he snarled. "I don't want your help." That was a lie, and a poorly delivered one at that. Peter cursed internally at the woeful tone he had unwittingly adopted and for making himself so vulnerable to these people staring at him. Peter closed his eyes once again and sniffed deeply through his nose as he turned his back on the pair.

A sweet smell he had never come across before unexpectedly invaded his nostrils and carried its saccharine quality into his lungs. His long, forked tongue slid out of his mouth, tasting the sugary scent lingering in the air. In that moment, Peter felt as though a weight had been lifted from his scaly shoulders, and every drop of anger drained out of his mind and spirit. It was a good scent. It made him feel…happy, for the first time in a long time. He turned back towards the human pair, doe-eyed, and noticed the previously neutral woman was now smiling slightly. Peter's eyes locked with baby blue of the man in the chair's, Charles Xavier's, and he suddenly felt the urge to smile, his lips curling in the corners of his mouth.

Through the haze of contentment, a growling began in the back of Peter's mind. His mind screamed at him for falling for some obvious human trick. They were trying to get him to trust him so they could hurt him again! Peter's eyes narrowed and he shook his head, the sweet smell dissipating somewhat as he did so. The comfortable anger returned and removed the smile from the woman's face as Peter scrunched his body and snarled, his mouth filling with venomous saliva that spilled past his lips and scorched the ground. They were the enemy! No matter how good they smelled!

Nevertheless, Peter felt himself beginning to calm, felt himself longing to trust this Xavier and the woman he was with. He wanted so desperately to just give in and have someone to depend on again, he wanted these people to be his friends, people he could trust to take care of him and protect him. But protect him from what? From them! People like them were the monsters, he reminded himself, shoving down the urge to trust them with a snarl. "You can't possibly know."

Charles Xavier smiled. It was a small smile, not a mocking one. It was like his uncle's. Another wave of calm rolled over Peter and he was again overwhelmed by the desire to trust the pair before him. "What do you want?!" he yelled, scared and angry at the conflicting emotions inside of him.

"We want to help you Peter. I run a school for people like you, like us. You are in no condition to live out here by yourself. You deserve better than surviving off rats and birds for food and living in constant fear of an attack from the outsiders." Xavier promised him softly.

Again, that sweet scent, that urge of calm. It tipped Peter over the edge. "No! People like you are why I live like this! It's your fault, your fault!" he flapped his wings and began to get air, his hands tightening into fists that could knock a truck miles down the road, anger and terror waging a war inside him with that terrible calm forced into submission.

Charles grimaced as Peter began to take flight. Rebecca was beside him swearing like sailor as she tried desperately to regain control of the boy's emotions, but to no avail. There was too much turmoil in Peter for Rebecca to hold it all back. She had done admirably thus far, but it was obvious now to Charles that Peter was never going to come easily and it was really for the best to let him bluster out his rage while he was away from the Academy where he could hurt others. He and Rebecca were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

_Thank you Rebecca, you should be able to let him go now. You did very well holding him back for this long, but he has been waiting for an attack for weeks. He was bound to be, how to put it, difficult to handle, _he sent calmly into Rebecca's mind.

The woman grunted and he could feel the mental and physical relief as she let go of her control, releasing it slowly rather than with a snap as he had taught her to.

_Difficult to handle. Yep. Let's go with that. Holy…_

Charles stopped listening as Rebecca's mind descended into a string of curses and instead put a couple of fingers to his temple and shut his eyes.

_That will be quite enough of that, Peter. I realise that this is a terrifying time for you but I promise that things will get better. Now, I apologise for the fall, but I'm sure your constitution will manage it. _

_Peter, now in full flight, suddenly felt weariness as he had never known before. His tear-filled eyes drooped heavily, and his body wavered in the air as the wave of exhaustion slammed into him like a freight train. He was terrified, and fought with all of his might to keep his eyes open, but after only a few meagre moments, his eyes slammed shut and his body dropped to the ground, landing heavily and creating a small crater in the earth. And with the pain surging through his body, he began to drift off to sleep as a voice spoke calmly in his head_

_Everything will be better when you wake up. Go to sleep, Peter…_

_So sorry for the delay guys, but here it is! The first chapter of the real story! Yay! Thanks everyone for the lovely reviews so far and thanks so much to my beta reader Halycon Electric! I've never had a beta reader before, but I'm finding I rather like it. _

_Next chapter ought to be up reasonably soon, depending on how long it takes me to do my Music Extension assignment, and the next one ought to be close behind. To those of you who haven't had their characters introduced yet, hang in there, they're coming soon, I promise. _


	5. Chapter 5

All eyes were on the new kid.

Storm stood at the front of the class, trying desperately to hold everyone's attention, but to no avail. Peter Whitney was sitting at the front of the class, folding an oversized body into a desk that was in no way designed to fit a dragon. Until a special desk could be custom made for him, he would have to make do with it, despite the terrible fit and the way the tiny desk threw his sizeable abnormalities into the harshest light. His tough scales scraped against the chair whenever he shifted his weight, letting out a harsh scraping noise as the wood splintered and scratched.

He was a dragon! There was little more to it. Sure, he walked on two legs, but he had wings and scales and things no normal boy of 18 was supposed to have. He was a mutant among mutants, and he seemed to be fully aware of this. For all of his dragon's claws and teeth, he was still a kid, a naiive boy struggling into the outfit of a man, burdened the entire time by a suit of scales.

But the other mutants in the class didn't see it. They couldn't see it, couldn't recognise the ridicule that had forced them into hiding being targeted now onto the fresh meat. From them, onto Peter.

Poor Peter had to play the new kid and the outcast at the same time, and he had never seen this amount of people together in the same room before in his life. He'd seen this amount of people outside of a room once before…but that hadn't ended so well, for him or the other people. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, what he was supposed to say or feel or think, nor how he meant to interact with the others in the room. Living your life with only an old priest for company was hardly good preparation for a classroom full of teenagers. The last few years by himself in the charred shell of his home definitely hadn't helped him in that regard either. It was little wonder the poor boy was hunched in a corner trying his hardest to vanish from the stares of the rest of the room.

Gambit's walk into the room did not provoke its usual reaction. Instead, the group barely noticed, as focused as everyone was on Peter. Pausing in the doorway, Gambit kept a hand on the door, not quite shutting it. He scanned the classroom, eyeing the shuffling and the outright stares at the dragon child at the front. He shared a brief irritated glance with Storm, who was stationed at the front of the classroom, a textbook on the civil war in one hand, the other resting imperiously on her hip, apparently being entirely ignored by her students.

They were all watching Peter.

Gambit eyed Peter. For all of his dragonish features, he still had the eyes of an 18 year old kid. They were still fully aware of the scrutiny he was under and the poor kid was terrified. Professor X had said Peter had never truly been out of his home before now. The other mutants were hardly giving him a good impression of the outside world. A pang of sympathy rang through Gambit's chest for Peter. So scared, so lonely. He expected better of the other kids. They all knew what it was to be ostracised, to be cast out and stared at for abilities you had no control over. To be singled out and scrutinised was to be a mutant. They knew how it could hurt and frighten, they had no right to be doing the same to Peter.

The door shut with loudly and everyone jumped, spinning to face Gambit, who leant casually against the door he had just closed and showered the room with a disappointed look. "I believe the subject is history?"

He was hardly subtle with his implications, and the students turned back to Storm at varying speeds, some even having the decency to look reasonably abashed.

Peter visibly sagged with relief and shot Gambit what he took as a grateful smile. It was kinda hard to tell with those teeth. Still, you could tell it from his eyes. Those eyes were very human. Or very mutant. Whichever label you wanted to stick on it. Smirking back, Gambit nodded and winked.

He didn't leave though, not until the lesson was almost over and he was certain the kid wasn't going to have any trouble from the others.

Of course, Gambit needn't have worried. Once the novelty wore off, the other students scattered around Storm's history class were more than happy to give Peter his space. And that was all Peter wanted, at least for a while, until he could figure out what was expected of him in this new world.

"Alright, off you go, remember to do the reading for next lesson!" Storm's voice fell on deaf ears as her students filed out of the classroom. Peter stalled for a moment, not really sure what to do. He wasn't even sure how to escape the desk he had wedged himself into, let alone where to go once he'd managed that. Standing up proved to be a challenge, and only after much scraping and cracking and screeching was he able to stand fully upright. The desk was not so well off, lying half destroyed on the floor. Peter felt panic begin to well up in his chest as he surveyed the damage. Everyone else's desks were fine. He was so destructive! Why? And what happened now? Would they kick him out for damaging a desk like that? Where could he go if they kicked him out?

A loud bang caused Peter's wings to snap out like they had a tendency to do when he felt threatened. The illusion was ruined slightly by his eyes, scrunched up in fear, and his hunched shoulders shying away from the noisy disturbance. A deep chuckle opened his eyes again to see the desk lying in shattered woodchips along the ground, in a much worse state than he had left it in. His eyes widened. Who had done that? Were they trying to make him look worse? To get him kicked out?

"Don't worry about it, Peter. Everything in this place is disposable," the owner of the deep chuckle stated, and Peter glanced around to see a tall, (though not nearly as tall as he was) boy who seemed to be around his age, with buzzed short reddish-brown hair and a strong-jawed grin. The boy concentrated on the mess on the floor briefly and muttered a curse when the scattered debris didn't move as he wanted to. It was too small, required too much finesse for him. Ah well, someone would take care of the broken desk. He turned his attention back to the dragon.

"Dragonboy, we're about to play some all powers in footy. Love to have you on the team if you wanted to play."

Peter wanted to say yes. He did, really, truly, he did. He was still slightly in shock over the fact that someone was speaking to him. The easy way out would be to surrender to the lure of the isolated library where he could sit in silence and solitude and read until his eyes could take no more, but that yearning warred within him against the almost physical urge to interact with these people. They fascinated him, and they terrified him all at the same time.

"I-I," Peter halted a moment and licked his lips. He wasn't used to speaking. He didn't do it all that much. "I don't know how to play." he whispered.

The boy who was speaking to him shrugged, running a hand over his short hair. "Don't worry, the rules hardly matter when we use powers anyway." Seeing Peter's continued worried expression, the boy cleared his throat slightly. "But I guess they're good to learn anyway, just in case you ever want to play fair."

Peter nodded, uncertain of how to respond.

The boy smiled. "I'm Tommy, by the way. Come on out and have a kick around. I'll teach you how to play."

Professor X smiled from behind the desk of his study, feeling Peter's joy course through him. He could feel it from floors above and flights away. Friendship truly was one of the most valuable things a person could possibly possess. Loneliness on the other hand, was one of the most destructive. Casting his mind out a little further, Charles followed Peter and Tommy outside and raced a little ahead, taking in the range of emotions from determination to nervousness, guilt, shame and sheepishness, all the thoughts and feelings of all the other students who were determined to make sure Peter felt safe and happy. Of course not everyone could get over the novelty of his appearance so quickly, but a few of them already had, and those few had a determination in them to help Peter to understand and get along, and those few were all he needed. The others might come around in time, but everything had a beginning somewhere. Peter's was here and now. His new beginning. And he had plenty of others ready to make sure this story was better than the last. He didn't know it yet, of course, but Charles did, and he had never been happier to say that he had absolutely nothing to do with it.

_I'm so sorry! I'm terrible for not updating for so long, I know, I hate it when authors do that to me! For as much as my excuses are worth, I was terribly busy over the last however long, having all sorts of meltdowns over exams. Well…one exam really, a music exam, a rather important one, in fact, and I'm happy to say I passed! Which is exciting for you guys because that means I have more time to spend writing fanfiction!_

_Thank you so much to anyone who's continuing to read this! Next batch of OCs are coming in next chapter. __ Much love, Randomuso. _


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